Black Sails
by whiskeyneat
Summary: Formerly called "Maybe It Was the Roses". Written in 2004, this is a series of loosely linear vignettes in a dark AU world set after the first movie. Elizabeth slowly sinks into madness and the world has never felt so free for Will Turner as when he's by Jack Sparrow's side, but Will is an unreliable narrator. {format bad, also on ao3}
1. The House on Lime Street

**The House on Lime Street**

 _Yeah, the world is still sleeping while I keep on dreaming for me  
And their words are just whispers and lies that I'll never believe_ \- Johnny Rzeznik, "I'm Still Here"

Lime Street is quaint, decorated by its rambling mansions and gardens that stately ladies take deep pride in. The afternoons are lazy and quiet, with a cool sea breeze that comes in from the harbor to tease one's nose with the faint scent of sun and salt. The breeze never steals one's hat; it is as well mannered and orderly as its neighbors. The children on Lime Street are also subdued; they play inside on most days, taking high tea with their governesses; it's a rare thing when a father must reprimand his son for climbing the parapets or putting frogs in his sisters' tea.

In fact, Lime Street is a prime location for ennui.

Ennui is what Elizabeth feels most of the time, when she's not doing needlework or sitting under the rose trellis with her eyes half-closed. The walls in the back garden are low, and the cliffs overlook the harbor. There used to be lime trees in this place of contemplation and solitude,(again, semicolon or new sentence) she used to spend all day out here, just staring at the horizon from sunrise to sunset, praying for a ship with black sails that never came.

She needs this mansion on Lime Street to hide from herself, to hide from her dead dreams and her dead marriage. The sons that play with frogs are not hers, the life that she dreamed of will never come back, and the men who loved her are married to the sea.

The house on Lime Street is Elizabeth's sanctuary. It is also a madhouse, if madhouse it can be called. Her husband no longer exercises his marital rights, as they have an understanding. Her father is far away in London Town, and it is here that they have left her to rot, under the ghosts of the lime trees, weaving flowers in her hair.


	2. A Thousand Doves

**A Thousand Doves**

 _Many a year was I  
Perched out upon the sea  
The waves would wash my tears,  
The wind, my memory_ \- Loreena McKennitt, "Skellig"

Elizabeth and her father are just sitting down to dinner when the bell chimes.

"Damn it all," the Governor says; slamming the butt of his silver fork down so hard it cracks the plate. Gravy runs willy-nilly across the polished mahagony.

The servant jumps a little. Ever since the Governor sent his daughter's betrothed on a fool's errand to London Town, he's been a bit high-strung. One could surmise that, his short temper has something to do with the errand, or rather, the possibility that it may just not be what it seems. Nothing about the situation is these days-a blacksmith shooting too high, a commodore adrift, a governor torn between his duty to his daughter and his allegiance to the rules of his class.

"Can't those peasants ever leave us alone?" Swann throws down his napkin and bellows "Henry!" at the manservant, who rushes the broken chinaware away. When Henry returns, there is a fat man at his heels, twisting his hat over and over again between his hands.

"Begging yer guv'nor's pardon, sir. I've just sailed in from Tortugua wiv a message. I'm ter give it ter no ovver than the guv'ner's daughter, Miz Bessy."

The Governor starts, his face growing purple. "You, ruffian! What is the meaning of this, this-Henry! Remove this-person-at once!"

"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm afraid I cannot," Henry replies, face impassive. "He bears the Commodore's seal."

Governor Swann waves his fork dangerously. "Well? Out with it!"

"I have to speak wiv her alone, sir." The man spares her a sudden, frightened glance, like a pirate on his way to the gallows.

"It will be all right, Father. Please, leave us."

Governor Swann harrumphs, wiping his chin, and exits the room.

A cold trickle of sweat drips down the back of her neck, and Elizabeth rises from the table. "Give me the Commodore's note; I shall read it myself."

"Y' might be wantin' to sit down for this, missy," the man says, and something about the darkness in his eyes makes her breath catch.

"Out with it, and give me the letter!" Chin up, she waits, like women do, for what will come.

"Miss..." he swallows, rubbing his throat with one hand as though the noose is tightening. "There is no letter. Th' _Merry Elizabeff_ were sunk by pirates just off o' Havana. She lost all her goods, and many a man as well...I'm the last to tell the tale, miss, strike me dead if I ain't. The Commodore came ter our rescue, but…"

"Will...?" She feels curiously calm, as though someone else's heart is breaking.

The messenger's anguished expression is all the answer she needs. Elizabeth sits down on the high-backed chair, her face blank. She will see this moment for the rest of her life, turn it over and over in her mind, as though examining an expensive vase for cracks.

He is always just out of her grasp, and she will never remember that moment without feeling as though she is falling.


	3. Strange How No One Comes 'Round Anymore

**It's Strange How No One Comes 'Round Anymore**

 _Your presence still lingers here...  
I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone  
But though you're still with me  
I've been alone all along -_ Evanescence, "My Immortal"

"God, please bring Papa home safely. Make Mama come home too, then we c'n be a fam'ly 'gain. Papa is so sad, and Nurse says it's Mama's fault, but if she comes home she'll see how much we love her an' Papa won't go 'way."

The Commodore pauses outside the nursery, where a spill of golden light has lit up his youngest and only child, kneeling at her bed in supplication to a God he's secretly come to doubt the existence of. Home early from a voyage to Barbados, still reeling with whores' perfume and the gentleman's drink, he muses how Cecily herself is a miracle of that non-existent god; born in the first year of his marriage, back when he'd believed in the power of love and redemption, when he'd still thought it possible to vanquish ghosts—inside the marriage bed and without.

"Papa?" Cecily is transformed—one moment the praying infant, the very picture of her mother as she must have been at that age, the next a completely different child, who races straight for him, nearly knocking them both over. He leans against the opposite wall for support and she buries her face in his midsection, voice muffled. "You're back!"

 _Most indecorous for a child,_ Norrington thinks. But finishing school will take that out of her, many years from now, and though neither of them can know it, this may be the last instance in which they spend any real time together. Not that he's spent much with her to begin with—his heart suddenly fills with emotion for this small creature whose paternity he's never been certain of. She may have round brown eyes and no one's nose, but she's serious like he is, with a love for the sea.

"Is it for always, Papa?"

"You know the answer to that, Cecily," Norrington replies, gently disentangling her small fists from his coat. Then he does something that later he'll blame on the copious amount of brandy he'd consumed before coming home that night. "Would you like to visit Mama before I have to leave again?"

"Oh, Papa!" Cecily breathes. " _Really_?"

There's no way to take back the impossible words without breaking her heart. "Yes, poppet. Would your Papa go back on his word?"

The light in her eyes dims, and the smile slips from her face. It strikes Norrington to the core. He squats down closer to her level, cupping her chin in his hand. "This time it's for real, darling. Now go to bed, we have a long ride ahead of us and I want you well-rested to see your Mama in the morning."

Her answering smile, so like Elizabeth's, should lift the damper that has settled over his spirits. But it does not.

Norrington has every intention of doing what he usually does the next morning; that is, to embark the _Interceptor_ on some useless errand. Silks, to please the new Governor's lonely wife, perhaps. He'd not return for another three months, but then at least he can face his child with a guilt-free conscience. Unfortunately, his plans are foiled by Cecily and her nurse, in the entryway bright and early.

Cecily seems torn between despair and hope—stiff-backed, lower lip beginning to tremble, eyes trained on the chequered marble staircase. "Papa!" She cries, but stays in her place, held firmly by the hand by her nurse. She's lost her childish belief in her Papa long before this moment, and the paltry excuses he's concocted taste like ashes in his mouth.

The nurse, an indentured woman he'd bought for her grandmotherly looks and not her mammoth proportions, plants herself with a huff squarely between himself and his child. There's a sour twist to her mouth that he finds most repulsive, and Cecily seems to shrink in fear whenever the woman looms too close.

"Yer honor, I can't approve of takin' a child to—"

"I did not employ you for your opinions, Mrs. Salt. You are dismissed for the remainder of the day."

Cecily stares at him, eyes wide. Perhaps her Papa can become a hero again. She takes his proffered arm, and just like the lady she will one day become, demurely lets him lead her to the carriage.

"Papa, how will Mama know it's me? She hasn't seen me since I was a baby. Papa, what if Mama wants to come home with us? She can share my room. Maybe if she comes home she could give you another baby to look after. I should so like a brother, better than any of my dolls…" Cecily has kept up a constant chatter since they left the estate two hours past. Norrington prays that at least Elizabeth is lucid, for Cecily's sake. It's only him she pretends with, it's only him she doesn't want to see. He prays that courtesy does not extend to their daughter.

The house on Lime Street is just as he left it that last time—spacious and airy, with French doors that open into a garden overlooking the sea. Against the popular sentiment of the time—what else is there for a man to turn to when his wife's mind has stopped working? —he turned his back on the advice of both the doctor and his father-in-law and had her installed in a house of her own, where hopefully, with time, she would regain her senses. _Insanity_ —he shudders to think the word—is it curable? Once he thought she would make a proper wife. Perhaps—dare he hope? Perhaps once she sees Cecily, she'll rethink this whole madness charade.

Norrington raises his hand to the knocker, gives it two sharp raps. Five minutes pass, then ten. The heat is stifling. He knocks again. Through the window, a muffled expletive, then the door swings open to reveal a mob-capped servant, bonnet askew, one eyebrow lifted suspiciously.

"Yass?"

"Is the lady of the house—presentable?"

"Depends wot y' mean by 'presentable', guv," the girl sneers. "An' jus' oo might _yew_ be?"

" _That_ should be obvious. Unless Elizabeth has taken to entertaining other gentlemen callers, which I doubt. I am Norrington."

"No ya bloody well ain't. Iv'ryone knows the commodore don't ever come ter call."

"That's enough impertinence from you, my gel!" A frightful old besom, nonetheless imposing for all her wizened stature, storms up to the wench and gives her a smart box to the ears. "Sir," she curtsies. "I must apologize for my tardiness. There's been an…incident…in the gardens.

Norrington feels the blood drain from his face. "Incident?"

"Wiv that bloody monkey, she means."

"Sally! That's enough!"

"Aw, but Missus Gibbs—"

"Mrs. Gibbs," Norrington smoothly interjects, "dismiss Sally without a reference. You know I dislike impertinence from the servants. Now, how is my wife? Is there any improvement?"

Mrs. Gibbs is suddenly shoved aside by Sally, who flees howling into the bowels of the house. The housekeeper regains her balance, shaking her head somberly. "Nothin's been the same since my boy Joshamee left. Polly's run off wit' a pirate, th' gardener's boy jumped a ship fer the Colonies, an' then the sailor man brung back a monkey for my lady—"

"Mrs. Gibbs. I trust you received the letter expressing my condolences regarding your loss, and the five extra pounds a year?"

"It don't bring them back, " Mrs. Gibbs shakes her head. "Who's this darlin' creature, then?"

"Cecily!" Norrington thunders. "I told you to stay in the carriage!"

"It's no trouble, sir. I'll just take this lovely young lady down to the kitchens to take her tea," she says with a wink he isn't sure he's seen, "you can see the 'improvement' to your wife yourself. "

"No, no, you misunderstand the nature of this visit, Mrs. Gibbs. I—"

"Do you take care of my Mama?" Cecily tugs at Mrs. Gibbs' skirts. "Papa says we'll see her today. I've never met her, but Papa says she might like me to visit her sometimes. Do you think she'll like me?"

"You see?" His eyes implore the housekeeper over Cecily's golden head, and Mrs. Gibbs feels a crumbling in her heart for this sad-eyed man who put his wife away because he didn't know how to handle her. For the wife, she no longer feels pity, only exasperation. She's used up her last drop of pity long ago.

"Zelda!" Mrs. Gibbs shouts, and a willowy black girl appears as though by magic. "Why don't you show the young miss to the gardens?"

"Go on, Cecily," Norrington ushers her forward, then turns back to Mrs. Gibbs. "Now, what's this about a sailor and a monkey?"

Fifteen minutes later, guts churning with mingled jealousy and impotent rage, Norrington bursts in on a pastoral scene—Elizabeth, parasol held by young boys jostling for a turn, reading pirate tales to an assorted mixture of children on the lawn. Cecily is nowhere in sight. "Elizabeth!" Norrington whispers, hands fisted so tightly his knuckles are white. Composing himself, he strides across the grass, dreading what is to come. The children scatter—some across the rosebushes, but most up a ladder over the ivy-clad wall. There are no words to describe the way it makes him feel when her eyes skim past him, over him, beyond him—but never rest _on_ him. "Elizabeth," he implores, frozen in place by her beauty like a schoolboy glimpsing the perfectly sculpted flesh of a courtesan for the first time. She is exquisite—ringlets streaked gold from the sun, skin glowing with cream and rose, long-limbed and slender-waisted as ever. He holds out a hand, and then draws it back, because she is gone to him again—face bent over the volume, hair rippling loosely in the breeze.

"Mama?" The pain in his guts expands to his chest, and he wants to pull Cecily to him, to save her from this inglorious pain, but instead he hides in the shadows of the lime tree, closing his eyes against the sweet treble notes of his daughter's happiness. "Mama, it's me. Cecily. Papa said you were beautiful, but Mama—" her voice sinks to a reverent hush Norrington must strain to hear, "you look like an _angel_."

"Cecily…what a pretty name. I had a baby once; I named her Cecily, after Will's mother. But my Cecily is dead like Will, gone, gone, gone…"

"Mama, _I'm_ your Cecily."

It's too much; he can't bear the confusion in his little girl's voice. The Commodore slips from the trees, past forget-me-nots he doesn't remember, roses he doesn't smell, to a wife he never listened to when she was sane. "Look at our child, Elizabeth. Your baby is here now. Are you ready to be her mother?"

"I don't have a baby. They took her away. He drowned out there, where the mermaids sing, and they took her away because she had his eyes."

Norrington sneaks a glance at Cecily's eyes. They hold no secrets.

"Little Cecily, would you like it if I read you a story? Shhh, it's about pirates. I can tell you a story that isn't in here, it's about a pirate named Jack Sparrow, who impersonated—" the book is torn from her slim hands by her husband, who flings it over the sea wall, where is lands with a satisfyingly wet splash on the other side.

He grabs Elizabeth by the shoulders, he means to make her look at Cecily, and then he sees it. A spark of real defiance, real _Elizabeth_ there in her eyes and then he's shaking her and shaking her and Cecily is sniveling with fright. She runs away into the lime trees, and it's just the two of them. That's when his wife turns into the woman he's always loved and hated.

"James Norrington!" she shrieks, raking his cheek with her nails. "How dare you!"

"No, Elizabeth, how dare _you_? I should put you away for this…this… pretense!" He's holding her arms so tightly he's afraid they might snap, and she reels back to hock a glob of spit on his brow.

"Haven't you already?" she hisses. "I never wanted to marry you!"

"You came to my bed willingly enough once that blacksmith died!"

" _You_ killed him! You killed him, and you took our baby away!"

"He'd been dead barely three weeks before you finally crawled into my bed, you dirty little whore! You begged me to take you, and by God, no other man would've had you! You've been lucky these past six years!"

"Lucky! Your mad little wife that you keep locked away with while you crawl between the sheets with the new Governor's wife? Don't think I haven't heard the whispers, James. I'm not your prisoner!"

"Well, you're certainly not my wife! Any other husband would've clapped his wife in the madhouse and forgotten about her by now—I knew you were pretending! I should beat you like the bitch you are," the last words come out in a harsh growl, she's stopped struggling and he can feel every inch of her pressed up against him.

"But you won't. You still want me, I can feel it, " she jeers nastily, rubbing up against him, and it's true, he's hardening with sick lust. "I want you to roger me like you've never rogered me before. My quim is wet for you, James. I've had no man between my thighs for six years."

"What about that sailor, then?" he roars, and there is a noise from the foliage somewhere between a whimper and a moan. He lets Elizabeth go—his only mistake—and drops to his knees, imploring Cecily as he gathers her up in his arms. "Hush, poppet, hush now. Papa's here."

"He's a better lover than you ever were," his lady wife spits out as though every word is poison, and James claps his hands over Cecily's ears—a bit too late, and his second mistake. "He's the real father of my baby."

"Will is dead, Elizabeth. This is your baby—look at her! She's a big girl now, six years old. She needs you…I need you."

"No! He came to me last night, his lips tasted of the sea. I'm going to run away with him and we're going to find Jack. We're going to be pirates. Father wants me to marry the Commodore, but I married Will already and he doesn't even know. It's a secret!" She giggles like a little girl.

"Wake up! Will is dead! Your father is gone! You've been here for too long, playacting at madness! Grow up and be a mother to your child, Elizabeth!"

"I'm waiting for Will, three lights he said. Three lights and I'm to meet him dressed like a boy, down at the docks. We'll commandeer a ship and bring it to Jack, that'll show them!" Elizabeth's smile is far away again, and that's when Norrington extricates himself from the child to tower over his wife.

"He's dead," he says simply. And then he slaps her.

Cecily grips her father's hand tightly, as they hurry back to the carriage, biting her lower lip as she tries to block out the screams echoing through the house. She will never ask God for any more favors—at this moment, her Papa isn't much of a hero to her either. As they approach the gates, a wicked-looking old salt with a salt-and-pepper beard and a bow-legged gait looms out of the shrubbery. There's a monkey on his shoulder that chitters happily. The Commodore growls, "I might have known."

James Norrington sees, now, that his wife's madness is merely a convenience in which to hide from the world. She cannot imagine a world in which Turner does not exist, and quite frankly, he thinks the two of them better off without her. Even if he did tell her the truth about Turner's death, she'd run away. Cecily ends up motherless either way, for he doesn't intend to remarry. He'll never give up on the woman of his dreams.


	4. Shore Leave

**Shore Leave**

 _Ten years the waves roll the ships home from the sea,  
Thinkin' well how it may blow in all good company,  
If I tell another what your own lips told to me,  
Let me lay beneath the roses, till my eyes no longer see. _– Grateful Dead, "Maybe It Was The Roses"

Shore leave in Tortugua is always the same, whores and watered-down rum, awakening in a sordid room much like this one with shirts missing, trousers unbuttoned, and cocks at half-mast. In the morning light, the whore looks a lot younger than and much less like Elizabeth than she had the night before— _Fancy a fuck, gents? Five shillings for the pair o' ye_ —buttercup hair loose, face paint smeared across the bedding. Jack is snoring loudly beside her, one arm flung haphazardly over the swell of her rump, the other dangling off the bed. What Will remembers of the night before is enough champagne to drown in, and young boys with wicked mouths and arses that called a man to sin.

It hadn't always been like this. In the old days, he'd hated the very mention of the word "pirate". In the old days, he'd had a trade, and a fiancée with a dowry every man envied. He hadn't cared about the dowry—just the girl. It nearly cost him his life. Now he cares for nothing, for no one—except the man who's saved that life more times than he cares to count.

He's been drifting in and out of consciousness for two days, his only connection to this world a rowboat, sans oars, lost in the storm. The sun is hazy and high in the sky, and he's lost in a dream of Elizabeth dancing in a fountain, the water droplets glistening against the pale cream of her skin. He's just about to lick them off when a rude shout awakens him.

"You there! Ahoy!"

His head is too heavy to lift, and his limbs seem to be disconnected from the rest of his body. The voices keep on fading in and out, and his tongue is moving in a language all but forgotten. "H…h…help…" The sun is in his eyes, and there's a splash somewhere nearby, but it's too hard to concentrate, what with the water dripping from Elizabeth's hair and her lips parting to shape his name…

"Will? Will! Will Turner! Get up, mate!" There's a bit of grunting and grumbling, and then they're flying… "Bloody 'ell Turner, yer makin' this difficult."

Taste, touch, sense—a sudden sensation of soaring—and then landing down hard on sheets as soft as eiderdown. Later, he'll chalk this chance meeting up to luck, or maybe even fate—God knows he isn't a particularly superstitous man, not even after the events abroad the _Black Pearl_ six months previous.

When he comes to, they're forcing water down his throat; apparently the crew doesn't believe in letting a man die in peace. He doesn't remember very much from that time; most of it is hearsay—the way he screamed her name, over and over, a man banished forever to the pits of hell; the bronzed hands that held him down; the prolific curses and cajoling that brought him back from the brink.

"That would've been yer windin' sheet in another couple of hours, lad." Everything is in focus now—the candles guttering beside the bunk, the dark eyes that seem to be everywhere and nowhere at once, the water-soaked rag that is making its slow, tortorous way down his chest. There's a not unpleasant sensation of tingling in his groin, and by the way his companion's fingers are lingering on his skin, he can only imagine that the idea isn't anything Jack would be averse to.

"How long have I been like this?"

"What, completely at m'tender mercies? Oh, I'd say a week at most. You, Turner, are the very reason this crew has been saved from boredom. This," Jack shakes his head with a rougish grin, "has to be the most entertainment we've seen in weeks. You were lucky we was passin' along that route just then."

"I was coming back from England..." Will winces, and attempts to sit up. "Elizabeth! I have to get back to her!"

"I hate to be the one to tell you this, mate, but word on the water is this—that the Commodore Norrington's taken a wife and all waters in and about Port Royal are open season while the couple takes their honeymoon tour. So if you intend to 'brave all and reclaim the fair lady', you'll have to go it alone, mate. You ain't in much of a condition to, though, if you don't mind my interference. In case you hadn't thought this out, you probably left, what? Four months ago? You've been sick for quite awhile, mate. That Norrington, aye, and Governor Swann, they would've taken advantage of the word of your death."

"Elizabeth's not like that!" Will growls, lunging for Jack and grossly miscalculating his bodily strength. He falls jelly-limbed and dizzy to the floor of the captain's quarters, the world spinning. Weeks later, honeymoon tour and recuperation complete, Will sneaks into the fort disguised so throughly his own mother wouldn't know her son. Elizabeth looks happy enough—that, more than anything, is what makes him finally choose the path of raid, pillage and plunder.

This is what it comes down to—Jack's lips on his own are sweeter than Elizabeth's ever were. Six months after Port Royal, Will is sitting on his hammock, melancholy and brooding, when Jack comes in and plops down next to him. They've been decamped in Tortugua for nigh on a week now, and Will can't lose himself between a whore's thighs the way the others can. There's too much he's clung to—brown eyes, and the dream of his childhood, and the promises of the flesh that now mean less than nothing. He's tried to come to terms with losing her, for she'll always be his heart. He'll always unconsciously be trying to find her.

"She's gone, Turner. Either you're going to come to terms with it or you're not, and if you can't you'll find all your friends will turn away one by one, because no one wants to keep company with a man who's miserable all the time."

"Trust you to tell me the truth of it, Jack," Will snaps, but he puts down the sword he's been staring at for the past half hour or so.

"Aye, my friend, there be other mermaids in the ocean. What say you we find you a damsel in distress in Tortuga?"

Will allows himself to be dressed in full pirate splendor (the hat is the most important part) and dragged to that city of iniquity. The rum is potent enough to stunt a man permanently, and the night is just beginning to blue when they stumble upon two sloe-eyed strumpets of indeterminate age leaning just in the shadows of _The Cat and Hare_.

"Look, they come in pairs!" Jack chortles, throwing and arm around each of their shoulders. "One for me an' one for you, eh Will?"

The little one steps forward. "You ain't thinkin' of buyin' Sally, are ye? She's a queer mort, she is." At Will's confused look, she mouths " _French pox_!"

Sally spits in the direction of her companion and storms off towards the tavern. The other, with her ragged blue dress and grubby cheeks, is nothing like Elizabeth, and that's what Will needs right now—just a hole.

"You come too," he slurs, grabbing Jack and they all stagger up the stairs behind the tavern. The whore must be used to customers' peculiar peccadillos by now, for she makes no protest as they laugh and stumble to the room. Once they're in, however, it's a different story.

"Can't do it if _he's_ watchin'," the dolly-mop slurs, indicating Jack as she licks her lips lasciviously, but that doesn't stop her from undoing the front laces of her dress. It falls, and she's left in nought but her corset and shift, a highly appealing mixture of cleavage and curves. "Two more shillings for the both o' ye, but mind ye, I'll not be havin' any swivin' mollies in my bed."

Jack shoots Will a hot look, and winks rougishly at the strumpet. "Not on your time, love. Word of a pirate."

"Right, save it fer yer own time and not Janey's," she purrs, strutting up to the two of them. "How d'ye like it, lads? I c'n do it the French way."

"Isn't that what got your friend Sally into trouble?" Jack murmurs, oozing charm and poison.

"Eh?"

"Let me show the lad here how a real man takes a lady, then, Janey-who-does-it-the-French-way." Twirling his mustasche with his fingers, Jack drops two shillings on the bedside table and begins to undo his trousers.

"I saw her first!" Will cries, slamming his two shillings down on the table atop Jack's.

"Now, now, gents, there's enough Janey for everyone." Laughing nervously, Janey dithers between the two of them.

"And I've never done this before...with a whore." The drink has loosened his tongue, and it comes out louder than he's planned. Both Janey and Jack look at him.

"Treat ladies like whores, and whores like ladies, that's all there is to it! Shall we show 'im, Janey?" Jack pinches the girl on the rump and she squeals like a child.

"Oh, I do love a fine game, sirrah!"

" _Captain_ Sparrow. And this 'ere is me first mate, Turner." Jack is suddenly there, bracing one hand on Will's shoulder and another on his hip. "This is how you kiss the _lady_ —" and his lips are on Will's, tasting of rum and smoke. Jack's tongue slowly begins to trace the outline of Will's lips, and Will opens his lips, unprepared for the sudden thrust of his captain's tongue, shivering with pent-up desire as their tongues move hotly into one another. The interlude is broken as he feels himself rising sharply and Jack pulls away, whispering wickedly, "I've always wanted to do that."

The little whore jerks Will to her and allows him to kiss her deeply, thrusting his tongue into her the same way his cock aches for it, but somehow it isn't the same. She's missing teeth and though her mouth tastes sweet from sucking on cloves, her ample breasts and tiny hips seem redundant with Jack's hot breath on the back of his neck. Besides, she seems to like it better as he moves southwards, directing his lips elsewhere every time he goes for hers. It's all the same as he remembers it being with Elizabeth—only he's not afraid to touch this harlot the way she begs for it; all holes and whores are the same in the end.

He's begun to undo his trousers when there's a tap on his shoulder and Jack flashes his white grin at both of them."Mistress Janey, if you'd be so kind, I fear my mate here's never had the pleasure of a lady's mouth on his prick."

She's quick with the buttons, and Will is quick as well—he can't stop the inevitable explosion, but she begins again and the sensation is so exquisite that he's pressing his lips into Jack's, teeth and tongue, in and out, hot and wet, groaning into Jack's mouth. As he tries to catch his breath, Jack tenses against him, submitting to Janey's nibbles and licks. Will glances down at her once, she's busy between his cock and Jack's, his seed spilled across her hard nipples as they strain against her thin chemise. There's too much going on—Janey's sucking and licking at his cock, Jack is sucking and licking at his lips, and before he erupts again, he growls out a single word—

" _Stop_." Will hauls Janey up like a sack of grain, pushing her onto the bed. This is something Janey's used to, and she dips her fingers in the jar beside her bed, rucking her skirts up to her waist and dabbing the mixture between her widespread thighs. "I want you to take me while I take her," he murmurs to Jack, cladestinely slipping him the jar, and blowing out the candles, steps out of his trousers to impale the panting Janey with a slick thrust. There's pain and pleasure all at once, and in the darkness the thrusts become frenzied, limbs flailing, pricks piercing, Janey's quim squeezing at his cock rhythmically. It's too much all at once—Jack continues to thrust, filling him slowly at first, then faster and faster as Janey arches her back and Will groans in pleasure. He slumps against her, spent, as the other two find their release with screams and grunts of ecstasy.

Later, when the three of them are done licking and kissing and cuddling in Janey's juice-riddled sheets, Jack shows Will again how good it can be between them, and Will knows he'll never pine for Elizabeth again (although she'll always be there in the back of his mind, somewhere between waking and dreams).

A hole is just a hole and a whore is just a whore, but ever since that night the two of them have been inseparable. They both like a whore every now and again-especially in Tortuga, although their tastes are different, as is expected—and just like that first strumpet, they always leave a bag of swag beside the bed. Swivin' is swivin', and Captain Jack Sparrow and his first mate don't need to be known as mollies in addition to their many other crimes.

Author's Notes:

Molly = 18th century slang for a gay man


	5. A Surfeit of Fools

**A Surfeit of Fools**

 _The people were saying  
No two e'er were wed  
But one has a sorrow  
That never was said..._

 _I dreamed it last night  
That my dead love came in  
So softly she entered  
Her feet made no din  
She came close beside me  
And this she did say:  
It will not be long, love  
'Til our wedding day_

"She Moved Thro' the Fair", traditional

In the bleak years to come, the servants will have a turnover rate of roughly one month, coming and going as they please with the Norrington family silver, the late Prudence Swann's vast collection of paste jewels, and Elizabeth Norrington nee Swann's best silk petticoats. She is forgotten here, left to rot in the islands with nothing but her madness left for company.

Aftr all, madness is an affliction the Lady Elizabeth Norrington cultivates, and cultivate it she shall, at least for the next decade or so, or at least until her girlish figure goes and she comes out of the stupor she's hidden in ever since Will's ship sunk on the crossing back from England where he was doing business for her father. She married James Norrington before she had a chance to wear her mourning blacks. She's worn black ever since. Seventeen years have passed by the time she comes out of her stupor-for a hanging of all things.

July 7, 1692 is a Sunday. Closer to God, as they are wont to joke as they go to meet the gallows, men condemned to die justly for their sins-before man, God, and a serious lack of angels.

In the end, neither recognizes the other-Will is searching the crowd for the face that haunts his dreams, still hemmed in by the romantic notion that love rides you away from the mess you've made of your life, and all of Elizabeth's attentions are focused on the crusty old tar intent on meeting his maker beside Will.

"Turned out, she did. My lady nivir leaves th' 'ouse, but she's come ter see me to th' Gates, bless me if she ain't!"

Will rolls his eyes, and follows the old man's incline of the head. The lady is clad all in black, her hair powdered, her eyes obscured by a veil. Her dress is badly outmoded by at least a decade or so, yet she holds herself straight-backed upon a white palfrey, like some ancient pagan queen. A maid is sitting on the grass nearby, prim and proper except for a hint of red petticoats. There's a monkey atop her shoulder, a clever little fellow clad in a green jacket with a jaunty little tricorn perced atop his head.

"Got 'er that monkey I did, how my lady screamed the firs' time she saw it! Didn't like monkeys much, but 'e's a sweet little fellow-" the man continues rambling, while Will settles himself into the cart, intent on what must come. They hadn't tied him this tight, by God, the last time he was sentenced to hang. This is the first time it's been without Jack though, and considering Jack's probably holed up on some debauched island paradise waiting for the current naval storm to blow over, the sick feeling in Will's chest tells him it's likely Jack won't show. In fact, considering the terms in which they last parted, it's likely Jack won't show at all and Will is shit out of luck.

This is his last memory of earthly delight, and what a memory it is! Waking in a mass of tangled sheets and cool sea air with a slight tang of salt he can't smell any longer, arms and legs a-tangle. The cabin boy, just a chocolately gaze and a delicious arse (that bottom caused Will to steal him from the bordello the night before), moans in his sleep and rolls over, leaving Will the dubious honor of observing him properly and without the aid of a stiff drink. How the angels must have wept to see him in that Havana hell! Curly dark blond hair frames a chiseled, heart-shaped face, complete with a dark red lips and smooth cheeks-there's a dimple in his chin that drew Will the night before-a night for ghosts and sins and sex, any way he wanted it. A hellish glimpse of white-clad whores and red-robed monks dances just below his lids, tempting him...Twelve virgins and a black mass...Freemasonry and the Hellfire and Brimstone club were more of Jack's thing, really...

The sooty lashes flutter open, and wide eyes peer up at Will in frank amusement. Shuddering in sudden horror at what he's done- _Wrong, wrong..._ -Will can only gape. For the youth has eyes of china blue instead of brown, and in the morning light his hair is more red than blond (unlike Her, it's always about Her for him). And when the youth opens his mouth, Will suffers his second shock.

"Oo's Elizabeth, guv?"

"Eliz-Elizabeth?" Will croaks, and there's suddenly a pounding at the door that reminds him of his hangover. He's never given the chance to respond, because the door slams open with a resounding crash, leaving Will blinking in the sharp light. "Don't move, lad," he hisses to the boy, but it's too late-the angel bounces up, and with a swagger to his hips (narrow, he likes to be gripped just so), he demands

"Oo are _you_?"

"Who am I? Who am _I_? I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, boyo, and if that appallin' behavior between your legs is any indication, you _have_ heard of me." Jack's roughish wink at said offensive behavior softens the jab.

"Jack-listen-"

"I think I've _listened_ enough, thank you Will. In case you've failed to notice, the walls here ain't the thickest. Young sir, what is this all about?"

The boy drapes a sheet regretfully about those slim hips (is that bruise a love bite? He must be a monster, he's bruised an angel...) and simpers in a way that infuriates Will. "Cap'n Turner 'ere saved me from _El Corazon_. Said I'd be workin' as a cabin boy on 'is ship, yer lordship."

"Ah, but your 'Captain' Turner failed to mention a matter of importance you may find enlightening. This ship ain't his, y'see, it's mine, an' we don't need a cabin boy. The position is, how shall I say, taken."

"I could change yer mind, yer lordship. I'm very-persuasive-when I puts me mind to it." The boy sidles up to Jack, and Will wants to rend him limb from limb as he whispers something in Jack's ear, sliding his hand down the front material of the illustrious Captain's trousers.

Will starts up from the bed, crossing the room to angrily yank the boy away, but something cold and hard in Jack's eyes stops him. "Jack, this is-" in horror, Will realizes he's never bothered to learn the youth's name.

"Whatever name ye fancies, yer lordship." Laying a too-familiar hand on Jack's sleeve, the youth flutters and simpers. Jack grins wickedly down at him, a look that sends waves of hot anger through Will's veins.

"'Yer lordship', eh? I like you, boyo. If you want me to like you even more, you'll get out. Now."

With a sashay of the hips, the bordello angel takes his sweet time going out the door, a gesture totally wasted on both pirates, neither of whom watch him go.

"Jack-I can explain-"

"A pistol with one shot, and an island of yer very own. You'd like that, wouldn't you Will? An eternity spent with yer ghosts."

"He was supposed to have brown eyes. Brown eyes and blond hair. I swear, Jack-"

"Seventeen years I've waited for Turner to come around, " Jack muses to himself. "That's nigh on twenty, and we're no longer the young men we once were, and even though I've given him many a chance he always throws it back in m' face." There's a certain bleakness in his tone, and Will reaches out, but Jack brushes past him as though he isn't there, as though he's never meant anything to him besides a warm body. "This was it, mate. This was it, and you lost it."

Will ends up emporer of his very own island, and two days later he's picked up for piracy with a boatload of buccaneers just outside of Port Royal. Jack's enjoying his newfound cabin boy more than all of Will's lurid imaginings can produce, and as for Elizabeth, she's charging down Gallows Hill on her horse, headed straight for the platform and her ancient friend when the first tremor erupts.

Elizabeth is nearly thrown from her horse. The animal screams as cracks begin to spiderweb across the plaza, but with her riding crop, she is able to force the animal where he doesn't want to go-straight into the belly of the beast. The fleeing crowd surges around them; the unfortunate few who have fallen are trampled in the rush for safety. The pirates have thrown themselves off the hangman's platform, and are trying to make their way as well.

"Bart!" She screams, too late. One of the cracks shifts, widens, and catches her friend by his wooden leg. Both pirates stumble, and the horse's eyeballs are rolling back to the whites as he struggles with Elizabeth-one turning back, the other running away. It all has to end in disaster, and it does-another tremor jolts Elizabeth from the saddle, and and the horse rears, spilling her to the unwelcoming ground. Where most would flee, Elizabeth is brave, or a fool. She runs for her friend, tripping and falling, trying to stay balanced. The air smells rank, like rotting eggs and pestilence. "Bart!" She cries. "Grab my hand!"

Bart grasps for her wildly, but misjudges the distance and slips further into the crack, pulling his gallows-mate along with him. Elizabeth grabs for the other man, and fumbling with his restraints, manages to undo the ropes about his hands. Together, they heave at Bart, but another quake sends the whole struggle straight to hell as the cobblestones close over Bart's shoulders, leaving just his head above ground. The air and the earth still at once, although they can still hear shouting and crashing echoing from all over the city, silence settles over the three of them.

The other man looks at her and mouths one word: _Run._ Elizabeth doesn't move. She's closing the eyelids of the dead man, but they spring resolutely open, as though seeing beyond these walls she's put up around herself for so long.

"You're coming with me, sirrah." Elizabeth says in wonderment, as though she can't quite believe she's been so bold. Later, she'll wish she died in the earthquake, but for now this is an adventure, one she's thought and dreamed about for a long time.

"What's your story?" It's much later. Will crosses his arms, leaning back, a fine figure of a man if there ever was one-white ruffled shirt, dark blue topcoat brocaded in gold, tight-fitting pantaloons that leave little to the imagination. He's sporting a rather impressive hat he's picked up during the looting, with overly large black plumes. She's only known one man with a fondness for plumes...But let that bide.

"I married a man I didn't love when my lover was lost to sea."

"And this man, the one who loves you now, you don't think he'll try to save you? If you were my woman, I'd drain the Caribbean dry and then search every grain of sand 'til I found you."

She's suddenly beset by wistfulness, wistfulness for the things she's lost. "No, you see-I'd been raised my whole life to be a pretty thing on a pedestal, a perfect ornament to any gentleman." A strange smile twists her lips. "Well, I wasn't, but that's..."

"That is exactly as ladies of your rank should aspire to be," he nods. "On a pedestal to us commoners. I'm sure you're a treasure to your husband. I, on the other hand, like my women a bit-"

"And I suppose you have a woman in every port!" Clapping a fine-boned hand over her mouth, the lady blushes. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid my sense of propriety went the way of-" _My sanity._

"Is that it, then, love? Has he another woman, or a score? Aye, I'll admit I've a child or two, but I've arranged it so they'll be apprenticed up, workin' for honest pay."

"That's an odd sentiment for a pirate, sirrah." Patting her hair, she gives the man the impression of chill, unattainable serenity. He's gotten a better look at her now, and the woman he once thought was a beauty behind the veil, well, perhaps once she was a beauty. The remanants of past loveliness still cling to her, like rose petals scattered and trampled by children."Why, if I didn't know better, I'd swear you were a gentleman yourself."

"Not by birth, no." His eyes are dark and unfathomable. "And like you, milady, I loved and lost someone as well. But it was treachery and revenge that drove us apart, nothing so clear cut as your little tale."

"I'd love to hear it, if you have the time." She lays her fingers gingerly on the arm he proffers her, and they duck into one of the private, walled-in gardens left behind to ruin and rot. There is a strong burning smell wafting up from the city, but that doesn't matter here.

"Milady, you saved my life. For you, I have all the time in the world." He allows her to lead him into the lime trees, broken branches bent together over a cracked marble bench, making a small grotto in which they can rest. "But what about your husband? Won't he come looking for you?"

"My husband is married to his work, my good pirate. The sea is a jealous wife-there's no room for any other woman in his life, and I haven't been the best at..." she pauses. "Well, I asked you first."

His eyes are far away as he begins, hands behind his back, pacing a green path around the bench. "I fell in love with the right person at the wrong time, and it's haunted me for the rest of my days. Like you, she was born to privilige, but we loved one another since childhood."

"So you became a pirate to better your lot in life?" My lady pats the spot next to her on the bench. He eyes it and her warily, for there's a crack clear down the middle, separating them in every way that matters-in status and in dreams. There's a wall between them that he's not prepared to scale, they may have this one little thing in common, but so do many others. She's not waiting to be rescued, and honestly, even if she was, he's not that man anymore.

"No. That's simple, clean-cut. I said this was a story of betrayal." He breaks eye contact with her and continues pacing. "Do you believe in ghosts?" Will can tell he's said the wrong thing because the woman's eyes become sad and far away, as though she's drifting just below the surface. "Aye, well, I won't disturb you with the tale, but I won my love through high adventure and feats of bravery. We were betrothed to be wed, such are the best laid plans of youth!"

"All lovers young, all lovers must,

Consign to thee and come to dust,*" she muses idly, as though in afterthought.

"Aye," he says. Some terrible suspiscion has begun to prickle under his skin, for the lady is beginning to disturb him for reasons he can't put a finger on. "Everything was planned - her father disapproved of me, as I was a tradesman, and he wanted a long engagement, but as I said, nothing would stop us from being together. What I didn't realize was that nothing is sacred in this century, not even love.

"Her father decided to give me a foothold up in the world, as it were, for he doted on his only daughter, as did I. How I wish I had never accepted! He must have planned it all, the old devil! He and that-that poltroon she ended up with!"

"Oooh, it sounds simply _wicked_!"

"That isn't the end of it," he continues somberly. Mostly he's stunned by the lack of the rage that usually accompanies this part of the story. "They'd been in it together all along. She was supposed to marry a Admiralty man-a man old enough to be her father! But she fell for me instead-a man with no money, just a vision of her. That wasn't enough-they had to make sure we'd never see one another again, and they did. Hired thugs to play pirate and blow the ship out of the water. But I survived. I was rescued by an old friend of mine and my father's," he continues. "And then I left to find her, to get her back. But by then..."

"Alas, alack..." she interrupts in a sing-song voice. He waits for her to continue, but there's nothing more forthcoming.

"By then she'd married the poltroon, and there was nothing left for me on land."

"How horrid!" Hand at her throat, she gasps dramatically, lucid again. "Didn't you try to steal her away?"

Will takes a deep breath, composing his features. "I did the wrong thing, my lady. I confronted the man she'd married, threatened to expose him if he didn't give her up. He laughed in my face." His words are matter-of-fact, and he marvels to himself at the lack of poison these words usually bring to the surface. "Then he had me arrested for piracy and thievery, and threw me in gaol to rot."

"Come," she beckons. Women always seem to want to comfort him, and this intriguing gentlewoman is no different. She takes his hat off and pulls his head in her lap, loosening his queue and running her fingers through the tendrils of his hair. Jack was right; all ladies are whores in the end..."You're shaking, sirrah."

"I hardly speak of her," he lies. "My father's friend busted me out, pretending to be the hangman, and I drifted into the trade, as it were." _And into his bed._ "But I never missed a chance to spy on my lady from afar, to see what I'd missed. Then she was with child, and from what I could tell, she was happy-"

"But you never learned to let her go."

"How did you know?"

The lady's eyes have grown cloudy again, inside herself he supposes. "When my lover drowned at sea, I began to die a little. That was when I started to see him everywhere-at the edges of the jungle, where paradise meets man, in the faces of the crowd at my wedding, sitting on my windowsill at night, in my daughter's eyes. But they took my baby away." Her lower lip wobbles dangerously. "It's strange, but I feel as though I can tell you everything...That was when I really lost it. It was easier to live in a dream than reality. My husband locked me away from my daughter, away from the ghost of my lover. He was always there, in the marriage bed, you see. It was easier to be a madwoman-and perhaps I used it as a crutch more than I should have."

"There's a pair of us then, pretending to be what we're not." Rising, he lifts her hand, grazing his lips against the indent of her palm. "Will you square things, do you think, with your lord and master?"

"I shan't, I imagine. Let him have his illusion of that girl. I'd rather run away and be a pirate queen-my life needs some adventure. Yo ho, yo ho and all that."

"I hate to be the one to break it to you, love, but piracy's a bit of a bore. Lots of waitin' for ships to come, yer teeth turn black as coal an' drop out." He has a golden grin, and it makes her shudder now. "Not so much adventure as you'd think."

He's a bit sick of adventure himself, and at this point, just wants a pirate named Sparrow and a bottle of madeira.

"You paint a very unromantic picture," she seethes. But she still has an echo of her old beauty, and he can see it when she looks at him just so-cool and appraising, in the way that rich women have gazed at their male inferiors with for centuries. She carries herself like a beautiful woman, even if the ravages of time have rent it asunder. "I've never wrapped my legs around a pirate. Will that do?"

He can see it now-the lady, cream and silk, himself, dark and rough against her. The un-ladylike screams she'd make, clawing at his back and begging him to take her the way he takes his whores. The way he takes Jack. He's shaking his head even as he's thinking it. "Alas, madam, I must be going if I'm to make it to Tortugua."

She turns crimson, and makes an ineffectual wave at the harbor. Over the sea wall, he can see that the sea has receded several hundred yards, leaving ships and skiffs stranded alike. People are scurrying like ants to and fro, their stolen booty crammed willy-nilly into sacks. There's a hidden cove he knows about, with a little boat enough for one man. He'll go to that cove now, for the lady will give him anything. He can see it in her eyes. "I'll see you off," she rises. "It's the least I can do."

They reach the cove on horseback, heavily laden down with water skeins and foodstuffs for the journey ahead of him. Perhaps he'll be in luck, and the _Black Pearl_ will drift out of the morning haze, his savior once again. Likely not. But it's a fond dream, a new dream to keep him going. He won't stop until he finds Jack, and tells him the truths he's realized. The skiff is still there, hidden in the foliage, and he makes short work of rigging the sails and readying it for voyage. The lady clasps his hand, and removes her veil, dazzling him with her powdered curls and her chocolatey eyes. She presses a soft kiss against his rough cheek, a shade on its way to the Underworld.

"What did you say your name was again?" It's an afterthought, a shout across the water, and she turns, back to the sun, the powder white suddenly blowing off her hair, turning it into a brilliant gold that he must shield his eyes from.

Her words drift across the water, lost in the breeze, and it's only later, halfway to Tortugua, that he makes sense of their music.

 _Elizabeth._

 **FIN.**

Inspired by the song "maybe it was the roses" by the Grateful Dead.

* _All lovers young, all lovers must...Consign to thee and come to dust_ \- "Cymbeline", Act 4. Shakespeare.


End file.
